Fantastic Four :: The Incredible Torch
by MekQuarrie
Summary: An incredible responsibility. A fantastic escape. Johnny doesn't know what he's done. But this is big. :: Chs 1&2 of an ongoing story. :: 'BuildingFire' image reworked from Wikimedia Commons.
1. Chapter 1

"It's Grimm! Over there! Mr. Grimm! Mr. Grimm! Any words for the Human Torch? Any words for your friend? Thing! Thing!"

Ben pushed the cameras and microphones of the fighting reporters aside and tried to mount the steps of the Carlton hotel. A specially commissioned mega-bucket of KFC chicken swung from his forearm. "I'm gonna clobber that punk." He turned back to the TV camera and shoved his face into the lens. "I'm gonna clobber him permanent."

**:::**

_...PRESUMED DEAD +++ REED RICHARDS PRESUMED DEAD +++ REED RICHARDS..._

Johnny switched off the TV set and pulled the scratchy blanket up over his legs. They felt unusually cold. The motel owner had obviously recognized him, but Southern hospitality extended to customers who paid double. After an hour, there had been no approaching sirens, no helicopter searchlights, and no need to bust out of the room and rampage into the Georgian countryside.

He looked at the cellphone in his hand. It was a trivial little clamshell that he had been reluctant to throw away. He used the antiquated scroll button to select the address book and arrow down to the name 'Bruce B.'. His finger hovered over the call button, but he knew it was a mistake. He started to key a short text message "Why…" but cancelled. He stared at the phone and felt the anger build within him. Before he could throw the handset to the side, his hand flashed red then white, then the dust fluttered to the floor.

He was not sure if he had decided to destroy the phone, or if a primitive fear had overwhelmed him. But it was the right thing to do. They could track him no more.

He tired of the endless cycling news. The same pictures of the downtown office block on fire. No-one knew anything. It was all endless speculation. When the shopping channels also brought him no relief, he jumped up and grabbed the stolen leather jacket hanging on the back of the door. Outside the room, he jumped carelessly from the top of the wooden stairs to the parking lot and mounted the stolen Harley. It was time to get a drink.

**:::**

...COLLAPSES +++ NEW BAXTER TOWER COLLAPSES +++ NEW BAXTER TOWER…

"You gonna buy me a drink?"

The young woman looked too pretty to be there on her own, but Johnny nodded to the barkeep and let him set them both up with more shots of bourbon.

"I'm just passing thru," said Johnny as an aside. "I'm not going to be good company for anyone."

Her well kept teeth grinned. "How'd a handsome guy like you get so miserable? You on the run?" She was trying to engage him with a joke.

He turned slowly. He smiled firmly. "I just want time to clear my head. No baggage. No offense." He noticed her well-kept curls and casual clothes that matched her smile. She did not seem at all like the kind of person who hung around bars at the side of the freeway. Maybe a sales rep?

"Amen to that," she said turning back to the drink he had bought her. "If you want somewhere to clear your head there's the Crater Lake over the hill out back. No-one'll bother you there if you want to sit and think tomorrow. Whenever you get over the hangover you're going to have."

"Thanks," he mumbled. "But I'll be gone by tomorrow. You're not a therapist are you? Maybe a psychiatrist?" He pointed to the empty glasses and nodded again at the barkeep.

"I'm just Amy," she replied throwing a ten-dollar bill onto the counter as the filled glasses arrived. "Keep the change."

"Just bring another two while you're at it," he added. "And I'm just Johnny." He felt in the pockets of his ill-fitting pants for the last of his cash.

**:::**

...SEARCH FOR HULK +++ BRUCE BANNER LEADS SEARCH FOR HULK +++ BRUCE BANNER LEADS...

"I wanted to dance," Johnny giggled. "I do an amazing flashdance." He felt implausibly happy.

Amy propped him up at the back-door of the bar between the dumpsters. "Just stay on your feet, Johnny. Then we can think about walking and running."

He felt a rush of sadness that maybe she was about to rob him. And he had no money left. He did not want to hurt her.

"Don't make me angry, Amy," he tried to mumble. "I get a little hot-headed when I'm angry."

"Shut up," she said grabbing his mouth roughly with one hand and the cheap buckle of his belt with the other. He stood stupidly with his eyes closed, trying to work out how much of the Storm he could unleash on this poor little thief.

There was a flash of light from high over the roof of the bar. His Harley was picked out specifically by the searching beam. The muted sound of a chopper came gradually closer. Johnny's head cleared quickly, but not completely.

"Damn," said Amy looking up. "I guess it's time." She let go of Johnny and reached quickly into her purse.

Johnny wobbled on his feet and grabbed at the handle of the oversized bag. "Don't be stupid," he tried to say. "We'll both be killed."

Her slender hand reappeared without any effort, a slim knuckleduster crowning her fist. The tiny silver ornament crashed upwards into his firm jaw and pressed his teeth around the top of his tongue. Johnny lashed out at the purse and stumbled into the shadows, a sharp pain and the taste of blood filling his head. He fell onto his face in the dirt screaming aloud.

Amy stood in the darkness over Johnny's writhing form, ignoring the descending helicopter. Some idiot from the bar fired a random pistol shot into the air which she also ignored. Johnny screamed as he twisted onto his back, pain tearing thru him. His arms flailed in the air reaching out at nothing then stretched and swelled and punched at the dumpsters.

"Torch Smash!" he roared.

"Good," she said and slipped away from the emerging chaos.


	2. Chapter 2

"There's Banner! Over here, Dr. Banner! Bruce! Bruce! Is there a link? What's the link? Bruce! Professor!"

Bruce tried to press his electronic ticket against the subway turnstile. His briefcase and shoulder bag slipped awkwardly onto his wrist as he pushed thru into the station. "I have no unofficial comments at this time. Look out for my press conference at eleven-thirty this morning."

**:::**

_...NO LINK TO HULK +++ HELICOPTER FIREBALL - NO LINK TO HULK +++ HELICOPTER FIREBALL..._

Sue flipped her safety glasses closed and tossed them into the sterilization receptacle on the workbench. She had been staring at display screens all night.

"Something's not right, Bruce," she said. He stared back blankly at her hanging his trenchcoat on a makeshift hanger. She noticed that he had at last been persuaded to spend some of his stipend on a Ben Sherman shirt.

"No 'hello'?" he replied tightening the knot of his functional necktie. He unlocked the briefcase and pushing it into an open box locker. "I've been trying to help by working over at the Stark building. It's all very stressful. 'Hello' might help."

"Hello Bruce," she said curtly. "Something's not right."

The giant picture window looked Uptown away from Grand Central and Battery Park. Usually the sunlight would spill in giving golden glow to the Park and the rooftops along Park Avenue. Today was different. A horrible indigo cloud of concrete and heavy metals was being corralled and tended by tiny floating drones and street-level cleaning vehicles.

"Let me adjust the light levels," said Bruce. He picked up a plain remote and and pressed a simple button. The radiation shutters slowly descended without noise or ceremony.

"You can't make it go away," said Sue. Automatic light level detectors activated the internal natural light panels.

Bruce sighed and tapped the monitor screen. "I wanted us to work without distraction ," he said. "That's why I got NYU to let us use this place. Stark would just have

"Fine," she said. With a blink she activated the smallest bank of TV screens. Rolling news licked in from Fox, CNN and . All focussed on the same story.

"Why do they keep saying the Hulk was involved?" She spoke aloud as if she had been asking the same question for hours.

Bruce pushed his spectacles firmly onto his nose. "You know the big guy wasn't. You know exactly where I was at the time." He tried not to meet her gaze.

He saw Sue's cheeks flush. He could feel the air around her head pulsing out. It made his ears pop.

"And besides," he said. "They say the Hulk wasn't involved."

Her eyes met his eyes in a steely glare. "Exactly. They keep saying it. Why do they keep saying it?"

He looked over to the monitor screen analyzing the library of dust samples. "It's an easy hit for lazy journalists. Hulk smashed this. Hulk smashed that. Hulk made it rain. Hulk made the gas prices rise."

She raised her left finger to her lips. "Shh. Bruce. Just let me think."

"I am letting you think." He tapped the screen and set the algorithm going to crunch the data.

"Shh", she hissed again. The patterns on the screen had caught her attention.

"It'll be a while before we get anything meaningful," he mumbled.

"Shut up!" she exploded. A pulse of her force-field swept the notebooks and instruments from the bench. Bruce felt a psychic punch to his face. He shook his head. It had been a surprise.

He tried to recall the mantra he had to repeat whenever he got angry. But he had been surprised.

"Bruce," he heard her shouting. "No, Bruce!" His head was swimming and little spots of black and green started spin around the edge of his vision.

"Sue?!" he growled falling to the floor.

Another psychic wave engulfed him, but it was her words that tore right thru him, deflating all his rage.

"_I love you, Bruce."_

**:::**

...DEAD / MISSING +++ TRAIN WRECK LEAVES FOUR DEAD / MISSING + TRAIN WRECK...

Bruce felt his shirt collar was unbuttoned. He was lying on the floor of the laboratory with bright light glaring in hieyes. It seemed to surround him. He flickered his eyelids to clear his vission. The lab was still intact. But, then, he had suspected it would be.

"We must find his body," Sue demanded. She was totally indifferent to him lying on the floor. She kept her hands clenched and stared down at the lunch tray, little rolls of sushi rice and fish untouched in front of her. She had hung up the lab-smartcoat and now wore a heavy woolen sweater against a perceived chill.

"I assigned every micro-machine I could find to sift thru the rubble," said Bruce. "And Ben is pushing aside anything that gets in his way." He looked up to his workstation. One of the subroutines was flashing a DNA match from the debris of the rubble. "Don't worry," he tried to say. But she must have seen what he was now seeing. There was a miniscule match to Reed's DNA in the dust particles.

Sue slapped her fingers on the tabletop. A burst of her force-field swept the dishes sharply sideways. "Too late to worry, Bruce. But a bit of understanding would help."

A soft chime alerted them to a visitor at the reception counter. The head of NYU security was standing in her dark blazer with a stiff smile on her face.

"Excuse me," she said. "Professor Banner asked me to remind you that he has a press conference at 11.30." She pretended not to notice his disarray. "Should I postpone?"

He pulled himself up then leant forward and gripped at the nearest workbench. "Don't say anything, thank you. I'll be there in a minute. Can you find me a college necktie?" She nodded and turned smartly on her heel before disappearing.

"Shall we both go?" he said quietly, trying to turn the situation back to some kind of normality.

She stared at the remains of her lunch for several heartbeats before replying. "Why didn't you change, Bruce?"


End file.
